SERIES: Part One of a Five-Part Article

As a leader, how you tactically shape and send communication signals to others will have a direct influence on how others perceive you as a leader and embrace your communication signals!

Communication effectiveness in sending and receiving signals in the work place is critical to keeping everyone on the same game plan and not creating minor implosions for miscommunication. With a better understanding of the shared commonalities between the sender and receiver, a leader can become increasingly more effective in creating a hospitable environment for the communicators.

When crafting a communication signal, the tactical leader must recognize that for all of the differences among the individuals involved in the communication exchange, there are some shared commonalities concerning the communication psychology. As a sender (encoder) of a signal or the receiver (decoder) of a signal, it is important to see the psychology of communication as circular in design; what occurs within the process of sending a signal is similar to what occurs in receiving the signal.

To improve the process of sending communications (whether printed correspondence and memos, email, voice mail, teleconference, face-to-face interactions or group presentations), consider the six evolving variables of the process:

1. YOU as Sender =

2. Encoding Via =

3. How one Thinks (logic, rationalization, analyze…) and

4. How one Feels (instinct, emotion, experiences…) =

5. Shaped by your Filters =

6. Your Intentions =

7. The communication signal that actually leaves as a

representation of you!

“The words that you choose to use are the only representation I have of who you are and how you wish to be judged!” Explosive advice from a trusted colleague, Mr. Jim Stovall, President of the Emmy Award-Winning Narrative Television Network, television for the sight impaired viewed daily by millions!

To further enhance your ability to craft powerful words and messages, recognize that within the norm of communication exchanges in the work place how one goes about sending a signal is mirrored in the receiving side as well. Recognizing as much as you can about the intended recipient of your signal will help you tactically adjust the building and sending of a signal for maximum impact!

1. THEM as Receiver =

2. Decoding Via =

3. How one Thinks (logic, rationalization, analyze…)=

4. How one Feels (instinct, emotion, experiences…) =

5. Shaped by their Filters =

6. Their Perceptions =

7. The communication signal that actually is received as a representation of you!

What causes most communication breakdowns in the workplace today is when the psychology of communication is obstructed due to the sender or receiver, which in turn allows their FILTERS to be violated. There are six shared FILTERS that influence how we think and feel in the process of communication. If violated, the communication exchange process typically will break down, and one or both parties will feel compelled to defend the filter that they feel has been challenged. The six common shared filters are:

Age

Gender

Race

Education (formal, informal, technical, certifications, etc.)

Socioeconomic position and background

Profession (or cumulative professional backgrounds)

All of these shape how one encodes and decodes. The more you know about the other person, the more you will recognize that six filters are not a finite number. Rather, there are an infinite number of filters one can have. The six is merely a shared starting point. If you know what your filters are, that’s great! But remind yourself that if the recipient does not share a similar filter, you shouldn’t let that filter become such an over influencer of the signal that it becomes the filter violation breakdown!

Example: When I moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma a few years ago, I found myself being turned off by a great number of individuals when it came to communication exchanges. I soon was able to isolate the cause…it was a filter violation. In Oklahoma there is a shared number seven filter (RELIGION, or a derivative thereof) that is used to influence how almost everyone communicates; outside of Oklahoma it is exceedingly unprofessional. Once I was able to recognize what it was that I was unaccustomed to, I was able to set that to the side. Now, I hear people for the signal they are sending and not the one they are violating.

Should you need to engage someone on your team, there may be a reason for you to suspect that there could be a communication filter violation that would impede the flow of encoding and decoding. Therefore, you should preface the signal intent with a respectful reference to their filter, encouraging their ear to remain focused on the intention and not shut you out at the first sign of a filter violation. It could sound like this:

“With all due respect, I know that you have been doing this for some time (profession, education and possibly age filters have just been referenced). What are your thoughts on…?”

With this sentence, the leader has tactically built the exchange to be sensitive to filters and allowed the signal process to continue to the point of the message.

SERIES: Part Five of a Five-Part Article

If the foundation of human behavior performance management and improvement rests on the psychology that one’s mindset (thoughts) dictates the behavior one exhibits, an effective leader recognizes daily the tactical actions that can reinforce positive behavior or influence negative behavior.

The code for mindset, thoughts and mental energy is ATTITUDE. Therefore, it would be valuable for a tactical leader to recognize all of the actions that can promote and foster constructive behaviors in those around them.

As an effective leader today, there are eight elementary tactics for encouraging positive ATTITUDE and holding individuals accountable to positive actions. Consider:

A = Always ASK those on your team questions about involvement and the best practices for every endeavor. By involving them early and often, a sense of inclusion will be created, and powerful working relationships will develop as well.

T = TEACH others at all levels as much as you can, as often as you can. If done in a spirit of cross training, it will ensure maximum performance from every player on your team. And with this approach, others will be able to provide enhancement ideas to one another as well as hold one another accountable to performance standards and expectations!

T = TOLERATE others’ approaches to executing a task, when different from your approach. Individuals always embrace their action plans with greater enthusiasm and passion. Your benchmark should be whether the other person’s action plan is: Legal, Ethical and Cost Effective. If it is, let go. If any one of these specific perimeters is not, then speak only to that one perimeter as you coach them and encourage them to maintain a wealthy attitude for success.

I = INFORM your team as often and as thoroughly as possible about everything! Consistently, the number one threat to active implementation of initiatives by the front line is when they are left to guess the motives of the leader’s policies. The hidden “why” factor causes more implosion and missed spent energy than any other single force. Answer this question, and others will actively embrace you!

T = TERMINATE poor performance behaviors immediately. An effective leader recognizes that a bad attitude left unengaged (not challenged) is like a cancer. Early detection and early engagement can lead to early elimination. Left unchecked, negative actions and thoughts spread, becoming systemic and leading to visible implosions in performance behaviors.

U = UNDERSTANDING is a hallmark characteristic of a powerful leader today. This implies that that the leader has tactically interacted with others to gain an understanding of others’ values, core beliefs, desires from their employment and an overall general perspective as to how they think and feel. With this, increased awareness and a significantly better understanding of how others will respond to a given situation will be gained!

D = DELEGATE appropriately to those on your team to gain increased productivity. Also develop the platform of skills necessary from individuals to ensure their growth, development and success.

The picture and numbers are very clear. Performance, whether good or bad, is directly tied to one’s ATTITUDE. As a leader, your tactics either reinforce the positive or encourage the negative. You make that decision.

SERIES: Part Four of a Five-Part Article

An immediate clue you’re leading at the 30,000 feet level is where your attention is and remains. A clue that you are immersed in 5,000 feet issues is that you are off course as an organization.

Managers fly at the 5,000 feet level, but leaders must fly at the 30,000 feet level! Where should you be? Better yet, as a tactical leader in today’s marketplace, where must your organization have you to succeed?

Far too many major corporations find themselves in trouble today for one simple reason. They have placed 5,000 feet people in 30,000 feet positions. The momentum of the organization may carry them for a period of time, but if they are not capable of flying at the 30,000 feet level, they will eventually crash and burn!

One of the first indicators that an implosion is about to occur happens when people are placed into positions in which they functionally cannot perform. The first thing to go is one’s attitude, which directly impacts one’s behavior and treatment of those around them.

The needless victims of this crash are the people who make up an organization, and if a public traded firm, the shareholders as well.

A tactical leader, regardless of the place from which he or she operates, must understand the subtle nuances of 5,000 feet issues and 30,000 feet issues if they are to remain positively focused and create the proper attitude for others to follow suite.

First, the Analogy:

An airplane pilot knows that when departing and arriving they must be very focused and in total control of all plane operations, functions and actions in the area between the ground and 5,000 feet in the air. Thus, a high level of hands-on activity takes place. Most airplanes from 5,000 feet upward are on autopilot, meaning the actual pilot is not continuously involved in the total activity of managing and operating. Most pilots cruise in commercial aircraft at the 30,000 feet range, and at this level, you are able to assume more of a leadership role. You can see your horizon, destination, goals and overall big pictures, enabling you to make individual calculated course corrections to attain a successful arrival.

Second, the Application:

As a tactical leader, you must ensure your team is vested, empowered and held accountable to the 5,000 feet issues and basic operational activities that make your organization what it is. Examples of 5,000 feet actions are functioning tasks such as:

Meetings
Delegation
Training
Implementing, educating and enforcing policies, procedures and rules
Facilitating basic business processes that are what you are and do
Interfacing with end users or customers
Front line activities and behind the scenes functions that reinforce each
Dealing with conflicts, confrontations, problem behaviors and counseling or disciplinary issues
Etc.

When you as a leader have to come down from the 30,000 feet level, maintain a healthy perspective (attitude) in all of your interactions with others, as people will model what you telegraph to them. Also, stay focused because it is in the 5,000 feet issues that you can rally significant positive mental attitudes from the team that allow you the energy force necessary to be productive, be profitable and regain the 30,000 feet focus.

Examples of 30,000 feet actions are functioning tasks such as:

Planning, mission statement design, strategy sessions, ensuring that the values and integrity of the organization are maintained
Organizing big picture issues, advocates, personnel assets, etc.
Coordinating resources and personnel talent pools from which business functions will be drawn today and in the future (succession planning)
Building partnerships and alliances, forecasting market needs and maintaining course clarity for growth
Etc.

A tactical leader must understand necessary interpersonal skills, how to work the people equations effectively at both levels and be committed to instant interactions, if necessary, to ensure maximum positive influence at each level. Therefore, when a tactical leader is not at the 30,000 feet level, they must ask, “Who is left at the destiny controls?”

Maintaining 30,000 feet control takes a powerfully focused, controlled and positive mindset (attitude). Ask yourself who you interact with, who you seek counsel from, who you collaborate with and who serves as your model. All of these are 30,000 feet tactical leader questions.

Making sure everyone is flying with you requires you to stay on top of the environmental matters that allow people to either soar or come down into the turbulence of 5,000 feet implosions and mundane functionality issues.

SERIES: Part Three of a Five-Part Article

How others perceive you directly influences your worth to an organization and to others. In essence, your stock value is pre-determined by, among many forces, your engagement attitude.

Your engagement attitude is not necessarily a servant-leadership mindset, but rather a mindset that reveals your performance. It is predestined by what your attitude telegraphs to others in terms of how you elevate their standing or diminish it. Your future growth, survival and net worth are measured in today’s new business reality in two simple ways:

How can I elevate the value of my organization by designing and/or managing centers of revenue savings?

How can I elevate the value of my organization by designing and/or managing centers of revenue generation?

This evolution in performance improvement may be impeded by individuals with ingrained attitudes of shortsightedness, protectiveness toward functional positions o longer viable in the new business economy or elitism.

Success is in the journey, not the destination!

One way to tune up and tune in for the greater gain of all involved in your business would be to reevaluate where your present stock value is and ensure it continues to rise. Maintaining a “What’s In It For Me?” mentality is neither right nor wrong; it is simply one’s mindset. Your ability to recognize that your attitude influences whether or not you will engage others constructively or combatively is the journey worth taking.

Here are “Ten Daily Personal-Professional Stock-Raising Actions” that can be deployed with a positive self-attitude, thus feeding a positive self-attitude:

Become Intrapreneurial – In all that you do, internally draw upon entrepreneurial energies for growth and success by exploring ways to become better, more efficient, more cost conscious, more time efficient and unique.

Request Feedback – Request feedback from others on a regular basis. Place a specific emphasis on the behaviors that can be drawn regularly for success and those that can be improved.

Volunteer Strategically Internally – Volunteer for those activities, assignments, teams and committees that will allow you to make meaningful contributions and engage stakeholders to your business and industry!

Identify the One Percent Factors – Look for all of the areas that a mere one percent increase in input and participation would greatly aid others. This will raise your stock value and create a positive self-attitude.

Strategically Integrate to Teams – Recognize how you can best complement others’ energies and talents without detracting or alienating them.

Understand Others’ Rules of Engagement – Determine what others’ ‘hot buttons’ are and learn how others desire to be engaged (or not engaged) for productive interactions.

Don’t Gripe or Complain – Ensure that when others are negative and argumentative, you become the solution provider or encourager for others.

Zero Sum Confidentiality – If someone confides in you, don’t confide in others. Odds are very good that if the person who confided in you is not your confidant, the dominos will continue to fall as you confide in some else, who will, in turn, confide in someone else. Before you know it, your stock value will decline as a person who cannot be trusted. The person who initially confided in you will become an avid terrorist to you because you violated their confidence. Ensure that if you do confide, you do it in a safe area, where “no one” can overhear your comments.

Mistakes – Learn from your own mistakes, celebrate them and design learning steps away from them toward success. Learn from others’ mistakes as a means of shortening your learning curve towards success… you will never live long enough to make all of them!

Your attitude directly influences your stock value. When your stock value increases, your organization becomes a major beneficiary. Studies repeatedly indicate that how one appreciates others directly influences attitudes – Seventy percent of business owners indicated that their company has not taken steps to raise morale despite the fact that seventy-three percent of employees believe that their company should take the initiative.

The underlining question for a tactical leader is in how they do these action items, create an environment conducive for others to strive to perform these action items and how each is perpetuated daily.

SERIES: Part Two of a Five-Part Article

With leaner teams and increasing demand for greater performance and profitability from every aspect within a business today, tactical leaders must know how to intrinsically connect with each player at their innermost level. This will empower and infuse positive energy, thus reinforcing healthy attitudes.

Circumstances don’t just happen.
They happen because of the choices you make!

A tactical leader can deploy “Six Intrinsic Motivators” for increased positive attitudes within the work place and an environment conducive for healthy interactions:

Choice – As often as possible, allow individuals to make independent decisions regarding which task assignments they wish to work on first. People tend to have a higher level of dedication, commitment and ownership to that which they chose to do!

Decision – Allow others to execute their own action plans for implementation. While “choice” deals with what one may do, “decision” deals with how one may accomplish it. Individuals take more pride in their action plans and have a higher level of buy in when they are in charge; when implementing someone else’s decisions, it is easier to have a mentality that says, “What do I have to do to get through this?”

Creativity – Allow for alternative and diverging implementation plans to emerge, and make your work place a safe environment for people to surface new ideas for improved effectiveness. Repetitive action plans lead to complacency and boredom, which eventually lead to burnout and turnover!

Action Plan Feedback – Continually provide others with feedback (positive or constructive) after an endeavor by specifically referencing the action steps that lead to their final output. In this way, an individual will have a better understanding of how to proceed in future situations and gain greater success and effectiveness!

Challenge – Ensure that work for your team is suitable for their expertise, knowledge and desire. An almost sure way to de-motivate individuals, create negative attitudes and run off super stars is to repeatedly task work that does not challenge them. OSHA studies indicate that there is a higher level of on the job accidents and injuries in environments where people are not challenged and complacency resides!

Competition – A surefire way to excite and motivate others to greatness is to tap into one or more of the three intrinsic competitive forces. Professionally, we can compete against (one) someone else’s achievements, two) something else or (three) ourselves.

As a leader, how you tactically engage others will either reinforce positive team attitudes and performance or serve as the seed of future distress, anxiety and implosion. The choice is yours, and the steps are clear. Fostering healthy attitudes that, in turn, improve productivity and profitability within an organization starts with six core intrinsic motivators.

SERIES: Part One of a Five-Part Article

The new business order is “Change” (as detailed in the past four columns), and a significant change in attitude will be required for professionals if sustained profitability in performance is to be realized in the work place.

A major impediment to this transformation in ATTITUDE will be elimination of the traditional distrust between labor and management, between business and its customers and between veterans and new entries to an organization. All of this will rest upon the emergence of true leaders in the business place.

There is enough finger-pointing to go all around the business place today. Whether you are an employee, who has traditionally been raised to be anti-management, or management, who traditionally sees labor leaders as troublemakers, the old DNA of business must be terminated.

There is a new set of rules for survival and prosperity.

One of the most alarming examples of perpetuating negative and toxic attitudes was of workers being directed by their union to not work. MAXIM Magazine’s recent article cited members of the “Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees” as having been directed to merely repackage without cleaning blankets from United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada. In fact, 78 percent of the blankets tested were found to have pathogens linked to eye and lung infections.

The real fallout of these internal implosions is the external customer. And in a difficult economy, loosing your customer will be a definite map to unemployment for everyone concerned.

The persona or attitude that says, “Yea for me, and the hell with you,” puts people at odds. A persona or attitude that says tune into WIIFU, “What’s In It for Us” (See our recent book release, WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME? ISBN #0-9718010-4-5 / US $12.95), will bring people back together.

As a tactical leader, here are “Ten Action Steps” to be used the next time you encounter an attitude digressing towards self-centeredness, department-centeredness or click-centeredness and away from unity-centeredness:

Assign 100 Percent Accountability – In place of challenging the other person, thus playing into their conversation trap, or working to convert them to your view, which they will further resist as a veiled attempt to appease them or manipulate them, put them solely in charge of that which they would like you and others to believe they are exceedingly more knowledgeable.

Go One-on-One in Private – Meet with them where there would be no audience. Have pre-written the specific challenge issue and several possible resolutions. Then go face-to-face and share your concerns. Play to them how others perceive them and how that is lowering their stock value. Then invite them to partner with you to bring their wisdom, knowledge and experience out into the open for all to benefit.

Avoidance and Limit Exposure – Actively limit your exposure to these people to need only basis. By reducing your causal interactions, you will begin to place distance between their normal behavioral patterns and you; this sometimes will bring out a more hospitable persona. And, as a managerial-leader, limiting this destructive person to others on the teams limits their toxic abilities!

Pain Versus Pleasure Factor – Psychology suggests that, at the root of all behaviors, individuals act based upon a positive gain (pleasure factor) or an avoidance of negativity (pain factor). With the performance attitude derailer, explore which of these two avenues might best serve to change their attitude and, thus, behavior to a more desirable level.

Change Glasses – Perhaps looking at issues, people and the business environment from the perspective of the person you perceive as having a destructive team attitude may give some vision of how they arrived at their position. By arriving at this finding, you can reverse that process over time and coach to a new level of greatness that no one may have thought possible.

Rules of Engagement – Share with the other party how you like to operate, your preferred communication patterns and how you prefer others engage you for peak performance. Then solicit the same from the other person and work to respect them as often as possible. Sometimes people become internally frustrated and exhibit this outwardly with a negative or challenging attitude. By knowing one another’s Rules Of Engagement, you will know each other’s playbook and avoid inadvertently pushing each other’s preverbal hot buttons!

Mentor Involvement – Instead of working to find ways to isolate a potential performance-sabotaging attitude player, reverse all expectations and identify the level of expertise or functionality that they do possess within your organization. Allow them to step up to the plate as a MENTOR to others. This revalues their place within your organization and gives them a reason to become a contributor instead of a derailer!

Evolving from an attitude of one person versus another and onward to an attitude of how do “we” work together is the new business order in a decade of miss guided business leader’s, abdication of ethics and common sense and a spirit of condoned greed and corruption.

Becoming a tactical leader and working to get all players to change their engrained listening patterns away from WIIFM and into the same frequency of “What’s In It For huMankind” or the new WIIFU will be a legacy of success.

SERIES: Part Two of a Four-Part Article

Before you post your next announcement, send mail or e-mail, leave a voicemail message or communicate directly with another person about your next policy change, new product or simply change an initiative, consider what the other party may be thinking under their breath.

Leaders who effectively administer change and create environments conducive to change advocates can defer to a simple “check list”. This list can be checked mentally, when preparing change issues for presentation, and physically, as a facilitating template for change.

Ensure that you appropriately address to each personality involved the following factors:

What. These factors call into action the core immediate, medium and long-term goals, objectives and needs.

When. These factors call into action the final deadline and any interval deadlines or commitments.

Where. These factors deal with the geography, locale and environmental issues.

Why. These factors deal with the reasoning, logic and importance of the “WHAT Factor”.

How. These factors deal with the procedures, legalities, ethics, costs and ways in which something could be done or not done.

Any item not addressed may become the impetus behind others’ lack of attention, interest and commitment (BUY-IN) and the stimulus to passive-aggressive behaviors. It is these behaviors that may cause the implosion of an otherwise easily implemented change initiative!

Each of the Five W and One H factors serve as a reference point for a series of subsequent questions and checkpoints that can be drawn out of each. Your ability to hold yourself accountable for ensuring that each is referenced thoroughly in the planning stage will dramatically impact the level of excellence that comes out of the implementation stage!

I am reminded of a recent speaking experience I had at a Fortune 500 Leadership Institute. The theater was packed with engineers and mid-level managerial-leaders from around the World. While the audience feedback was explosive, I am sure I will not be invited back. I addressed why “their firm” is getting eaten in the marketplace – a subject with which the senior leaders were not impressed!

While there are presently tens of billions of dollars cashed and in the bank in escrow, with a competing company, for orders for a similar, sleeker, more cost effective commercial version of what they produce (which “they” do not produce) and tens of billions of dollars cashed and in the bank in escrow, with the competing company, for private consumer versions (which “they” do not produce), this company refuses to change. Even though it is reported that it will take the competing company years to produce and fulfill these orders, this client continues in its primary division – attempting to make and sell a product the market no longer can justify.

The market has CHANGED, and the power players don’t want to run the Five W and One H model, as they will learn they must evolve to remain viable. The student of market analysis and the managerial-leader will be able to watch another major firm implode if it does not embrace change.

Success in dealing with change, and even crafting the level of success

individuals may have, can be taken directly from an explosive statement from

ice hockey legend, Wayne Gretsky.

“I don’t skate to where the puck is, I skate to where the puck is going to be!”

Do you use a template to ensure your planning and implementation of change is successful? Do you have an easy system for stimulating critical thoughts and questions to ensure you anticipate change initiatives and meet them effectively? If not, consider this simple and easy Five W and One H model, compliments of the elementary school teacher from your past!